Before Dawn's Light
by Mitrus
Summary: The sequel to No Peace in Sleep, starting in 2078 (yes, I know I said 2079 before...). Countries are abolished, but then this severely weakens the nations themselves. The world's solution is to make clones to hold their memories, but nothing can ever go right, can it? See my profile for my status update...
1. Prologue

**I didn't realise quite how long it's been since I finished NPIS... Well, guess who's writing now! :D**

**Anyway, before we get started, there's one thing I'd like to clarify: this story is written from three different POVs. Before each chapter, I'll tell you which POV it's from.**

**Also, if there's a time skip (this does span over 500 years in total), I'll clarify the year.**

**Yay, I get to make up future inventions! I'll be sensible with those, though ^_^ (some of the companies mentioned are real, and some aren't.)**

**THIS IS NOT GOING TO TURN INTO PrUK (not that I don't like the pairing; I just don't want this one to be a shipping fic).**

**_~England's POV, early 2078~_**

* * *

"Mornin', Gilbert," I mumble sleepily, walking through the living room to the kitchen.

"Oh, hey Artie!" he calls over his shoulder, with one relaxed arm draped over the back of the sofa.

"I've been telling you for decades to stop calling me that," I reply.

"Come on, we're close enough for nicknames, right?"

I sigh, ending the conversation with "I find human names colloquial enough," and continuing to the kitchen to get my first cup of tea for the day.

I must say, I've appreciated Prussia's presence, even though the fact that Germany kicked him out of his basement for being too obnoxious was as strong a reason for him living in my house as him wanting to keep my mood up. He's been here to help me through many of my breakdowns; sometimes, I almost gave up completely on life. He's been ready, always, to provide a shoulder to cry on, or to keep alcohol away from me.

"What would you like today, Igirisu-sama?" asks a cheery voice - Hatsune Miku, one of those virtual singers (Vocaloids, I believe they're known as) - from a prototype tea machine that Japan gave me for free a few years ago. Her voice is cute, although it's still better-suited to speaking Japanese. That's probably Japan's reason behind keeping 'Igirisu-sama' programmed into it as my name. It grew on me, and now I don't want to change it.

"I'll have a cup of cranberry tea, please," I say. The machine takes a moment to process that command, symbolised by Miku 'thinking' it through on the display screen.

"Coming right up! Would you like some music while you wait?"

"I'm fine, thanks."

"Okay! It'll just be a few minutes," she sings, then going into a series of idle animations. Her interestingly-coloured hair reminds me of Emmakala. It doesn't matter that her hair is long and teal as opposed to short and purple, but every day she reminds me of her nonetheless. In fact, most things remind me of her.

It hurts so much to know that Emmakala's trapped that I can't even remember exactly how she came to be in another world, only that she's been there for 66 years. I've tried so hard to distract myself from the wrenching emotional pain that I was close to self-harm, but every time I forced myself to put down the knife, the razor, or any other sharp object that inched close to my wrist. I knew it wasn't like me to be like this. It's like me to at least try to help out a friend, right?

I tried to help her out. I really did. A few years ago, I realised I'd exhausted every spell that could have taken me there to free her, or brought her back here; each spell had a slightly different potential result.

But there haven't been any cases of people transporting themselves to different dimensions, and so my spells were limited in that respect. I even tried tweaking some of the words, but nothing properly worked. Of course, this led to multiple failures.

I had to apologise to a few fairies whom I'd accidentally teleported to my house. Once, I even made the news and became an urban legend as some people reported seeing me appear and then disappear in their back garden. Occasionally I had to fix some possessions which I'd knocked over with the sheer amount of power I was using.

"Your cranberry tea is finished, Igirisu-sama!" Miku calls out, and part of the machine rotates to reveal a steaming cup of tea.

"Thank you," I respond, taking it.

Walking back into the living room, I gesture for Prussia to take up a little less of the sofa so that I can sit down beside him. He scoots over to the left side, clearing enough space for me.

"What's happening in the world, then?" I ask, looking over to Prussia's and my Linaron. Once bendable screens became commonplace, and we collected enough money from part-time jobs on top of co-running my country, we decided to buy DigiSnake's latest device - the Linaron, a device that snaps to your arm, which works similarly to both a tablet computer and a TV.

"Apple's gone out of business," Prussia remarks, with a mirthful tone. "It was only a matter of time, with their prices set so high to recover from the recession!"

"I know. That happened years ago," I deadpan, taking a sip of tea.

"There's nothing interesting going on though!"

I roll my eyes. "Switch to the news channel."

"But this is the most awesome show ever... apart from the one I hosted once."

"You've been staring at that screen for God knows how long! It's my turn!" I retort childishly.

"Quit nagging me, Mutti!" he responds jokily, moving his arm further away from me. I lean over and flail for the device. At some point during the scramble, I manage to hit the '1' button, which switches the channel to BBC 1.

"Hey!" he exclaims, pouting, as I pull his arm back over so that I can see the screen.

"In other news, yet another protest has taken place outside of the Houses of Parliament," announces the newsreader. The video cuts to a recording of a large crowd of people holding up signs and chanting. "After such riots have been taking place in many capital cities around the globe, coupled with the overwhelming results of an Internet poll, the nations of the world have decided to abolish countries."

My jaw drops. "Gilbert, I never knew anything like this was going on! Why couldn't you have switched the channel every now and again?"

"You shouldn't have sold the TV if you wanted to watch your own shows..."

"We were in the middle of a recession!" I shout, placing my half-finished cup of tea on the table. "Also, we both paid for that Linaron, so I'm entitled access to it every now and again!"

"This abolition will take place today at midday, so stay tuned!" the newsreader finishes, cuing a stereotypical news animation and jingle.

I check the small digital clock in the bottom-right corner of the screen; it's 10:41.

"Wait, how's it THAT late already?" I exclaim. "I only just got up!"

Prussia stares at the floor for a moment, taking a few seconds to respond.

"You've been having trouble sleeping again, haven't you?"

It takes me a long time to reply as well.

"Yeah."

"We've been over this."

"I know."

"There's nothing you can do, Arthur." He puts a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"...I know."

No matter what I do, I can't go back. I can't save her.

"Gilbert?"

"Ja?"

"...I've never made a more colossal mistake in my life."

He fails to respond, and the room becomes silent aside from TV advertisements. I don't say anything either, choosing to stare off into space. The advert break ends long before Prussia speaks.

"So, they're getting rid of countries, huh?" he comments. "That should reduce conflict."

"I hope so," I reply, picking up my previously-forgotten tea cup. I swirl the liquid around distastefully; there's little doubt that it's gone lukewarm by now. I drink it anyway, even though it doesn't taste as delectable as before.

He checks the time. "One more hour..."

* * *

Once an hour has passed, which we spent watching Prussia's 'awesome show' (just one of the mundane, rehashed game shows they have nowadays), I switch back to BBC 1.

On the screen, there's a countdown to one side, with live recordings of several scenes showing people cheering.

The countdown reads 30 seconds.

"Can you believe it?" asks Prussia.

"What?" I turn away from the screen to see him looking at the Union Jack hanging on the wall opposite.

"They're really getting rid of country borders. The whole world will be united."

15 seconds.

"I won't be the only ex-nation."

10 seconds; the cheering people onscreen have begun to count down along with the timer.

"We're not going to have such responsibility anymore," I add.

"Just five seconds left."

"Wait, what's going to happen to me?!" I exclaim, panicked, just before Prussia and everyone through the screen shout "zero!" in unison.

Suddenly, a strong feeling of exhaustion overwhelms me; my limbs drop to the sofa as iron filings to a magnet. As my surroundings blur and I become woozy, unable to sit upright any longer, I slump against the edge of the sofa, weakly calling out for Prussia to get help. Sleep leaves me senseless, and my heartbeat beats heavily, yet slowly, as my tiredness even overrides fear and panic.

My eyelids slip closed.

Without warning, a burning pain shoots through my heart, and spreads to other parts of my body. So raw is the pain that it numbs me for a second, and then I let out a strangled scream, but I don't have the energy to writhe - I just suffer.

Now my heart beats louder, trying to speed up against the sudden onslaught of exhaustion, but it can't. I'm too weak, and the feeling's getting stronger; I wouldn't be able to open my eyes if I tried.

As I slip away from reality, I hear one last cry:

"Arthur!"


	2. Awakening

**I'm just hoping that everyone from NPIS finds this; I loved your support for that fic, guys, and I hope this one can be as popular!**

**As is typical of me, I've already thought of a sequel to this XD. It's little more than a concept at the moment, but what would you think of a trilogy? :D**

**Okay, back to the current fic. Enjoy!**

_**~England's POV, sometime in 2079~**_

* * *

My head throbs, the only signal that I have returned to consciousness, since the burning pain is fully gone.

Experimentally, I try to move my right arm, but it feels almost like it's pinned to the ground with fatigue. I try again, and succeed in getting a finger to twitch, then my whole hand. The floor beneath me feels carpeted, yet not as comfy as my living room's floor.

Where am I?

Sluggishly, I open my eyelids. The room around me is blurred, but I can see several long, thin, and evenly spaced lights above me. I strain to focus, and just about see that they're energy-saving lights, the type you'd have in a classroom. But why would I be in a classroom?

"...transferred too much," I hear a faint voice saying, somewhere to my left.

I tip my head to the left, but something prevents me from doing so. Then I notice the thick helmet on my head, buzzing faintly. Needless to say, it confuses me just as much as my present location.

But nothing confuses me more than the familiar person, whose identity I can't pinpoint, I see lying to my left. I begin to lapse back into sleep again, but not before I recognise him.

He's me.

* * *

My eyes open again, and even though I can't tell how much time has passed, it feels like I only just blinked. The same ceiling hangs above me, and the same carpet is underneath me.

I look over to my left again, wondering what was just going on, when I notice that _he_ isn't there... or rather, I'm not there.

There's still a strange device attached to my head, which I notice as I turn my head back to look up at the ceiling, but the helmet is so heavy that I start falling to my right.

And there's the other me.

Still tired, I just stare at him, blinking sleep away from my eyes, and try to figure out what's going on.

"Is this a dream?" I mumble, flexing my fingers.

Suddenly, the door bangs open.

"Hey! I heard that they're all waking up now; is Artie awake too?" yells the person who - I assume - just entered the room. It takes a few seconds for me to recognise his voice.

"G-Gilbert?"

I hear quick footsteps, increasing in volume, until Prussia kneels down, leaning over me. He opens his mouth to speak, but then closes it. In all of the years that I've become closer to him, he's very rarely been short of words. On the contrary, really.

He takes in a deep breath, as if wondering how to put something into words, before finally speaking.

"You've been out for over a year. It's 2079."

"How is that even-"

He cuts me off. "When they removed all the borders, every nation around the globe lost consciousness. To put it frankly, you were all going to die."

"And you saved us with your awesomeness?" I joke.

"Ha! I wish it was that easy," he chuckles. "Actually, your survival's all because of him." Prussia motions to the side, and with difficulty I lift my head slightly, seeing a man in a lab coat standing next to a large control panel. A wire trails down from it, in my direction; it's probably linked to this helmet contraption.

"It wasn't just me, you know," the scientist replies modestly, pushing his lab goggles up to rest on his curly brown hair.

Prussia shrugs. "You conducted operations in here, so you technically saved England."

"There are two hundred more countries out there. Even if most scientists monitored two nations, some even more, that's still a considerable amount of people in our group."

Something in my brain clicks. "So this is why we're in a classroom? Because a school is the easiest place to get a hundred rooms?"

"Yes," he replies. "This school closed down about a decade ago." He looks around the room, sighing wistfully. "I used to go to this very school, in fact."

"Right, okay, fascinating," Prussia adds sarcastically, "but I think Artie deserves to know what's happening."

He clears his throat. "After all of the nations fell unconscious, Prussia here came to us for a solution. As you know, the majority of the public don't know and would never believe that there are personifications of countries in existence, so there was little to argue for bringing the nations back. Once we'd heard Prussia's story, we sent our colleagues around the world to seek out each country and bring them here, to America-"

"Ugh," I interject.

"It was an agonisingly long - and expensive, may I add - process, but we sped up one of mankind's longtime goals for the purpose of this project." He pauses. "We managed to combine science and magic."

"That would make humans insanely powerful," I comment, propping myself up on my elbows as energy flows back into my body. "Are you taking measures so that this power doesn't get into the wrong hands?"

"Of course. But just imagine the possibilities!" His eyes light up with excitement. "If it weren't for a couple of our colleagues being gifted with magic from birth, we would never have put this process into motion, obviously, but now our entire team has magical arts on our side. Why, in just a few years, we could-"

"Ahem," Prussia interrupts.

He seems dejected for a second, but soon picks up the pace. "Anyway, we managed to create a cloning machine using the new magic we wielded. This we used to create copies of another machine we engineered over several months of hard work, with a touch of magic: a memory transferring device." He pats the control panel next to him, careful not to press any buttons. "We set these aside in every room, until we were sure that we had enough to carry out the next, more difficult, phase of our plan. Cloning the nations."

He takes a moment to gather his thoughts, giving me time to absorb the information. Being uncomfortable in my current position, I sit up during this time.

"Each clone holds a country's memories, so that they cannot die, despite all borders being gone."

"How does that work?" I ask.

He gives me a blank stare for a second. "The science of this is rather difficult to explain. As is the magic. With these two factors combined, it's safe to say that it will be a while before we'll be able to explain this properly. A long while."

"So then," he continues after another pause, "I need to ask you a few questions." He gives Prussia a pointed glance. "This is for scientific purposes. Prussia, you may leave now."

Prussia looks for a second like he's about to snap at him, but then he steps back.

"I'll get you some food while I'm gone, okay?" he says to me, before walking out.

As the door closes, the scientist tells me I can remove the helmet. I gladly comply; it was making my head hurt.

"What's the last thing you remember?" he asks, picking up a clipboard from the side of the control panel.

"I remember... a burning pain coursing through me, but I was too exhausted to properly react. I was barely conscious enough to even think that I was dying." He nods and takes notes of that, commenting on how other nations reported the same thing. "And Prussia called my name just before I blacked out."

Before he asks the next question, I decide to ask a question myself.

"Did he bring me here?"

I look up to see him smiling. "Yes. He paid for the entire Pacificapsule trip."

"Pacificapsule?"

His expression changes to surprise. "Did you never hear about the dual tunnel system they built under the Pacific?" I shake my head. "I can't imagine why you haven't; its development was on the news for years..."

"Well, Gilbert usually takes control of the Linaron in our house," I reply - I suppose that's partially true.

"Haha, I see. Well, in these two tunnels, there are several capsule-shaped carriages, which can take you from Spain to the USA."

"Wait - that means he drove to the southern coast of England, took a ferry to France, and then drove all of the way to Spain?"

"Evidently, he'd go great lengths for you."

I stare at the door, trying to take in the fact that Prussia, who's known for being egocentric and incredibly annoying, would do such a thing for me.

"Wow," I eventually whisper.

"You owe him your life."

I chuckle. "I owe you too."

"I'm just doing my job," he replies, shrugging. "You really should thank my boss, but she's busy dealing with a very different clone."

"Different?" I tilt my head to the left slightly, in confusion.

"We didn't have any of the ancient nations to clone directly from - Rome, Germania, Ancient Greece, or Ancient Egypt, to name a few - but they were once countries too, and it's important to preserve their memories as well. So, we collected information about all past nations from their descendants' minds, and combined them all together into one entity. However, something went wrong in the process, and this 'clone', if she can be called one, is twice as big as the average human, and somewhat... unstable."

"Ah," I reply, pretending that I understand what's happening. "So when is he meant to be waking up?" I enquire, nodding towards my sleeping clone.

"He woke up not too long ago," he replies, "although, that was technically you. I went too far with the transfer, and not only copied over your memories, but also your conscious mind. That was easily resolved, though. Anyway, he should be waking up again, as a separate being, any time now. The transfer is complete, and the vessel itself is clearly functional."

I look over to my clone while he's speaking; his chest is moving up and down, an obvious sign of him breathing.

"Is he actually... alive?" I ask.

"'Alive' is a rather ambiguous term at this stage. I suppose you could say that he is."

At this point, the clone awakes. As he opens his eyes, the first thing that strikes me is their colour: bright red. I give the scientist a puzzled look, and he explains that they edited each clone's genes slightly to make their eye colour negative, as a method of differentiating between the clones and originals.

The clone's eyes dart around, and he tries to sit up, but barely manages to move due to the helmet.

"Shhh," the scientist comforts him. "You're still weak. Just stay there for a while."

However, he doesn't manage to calm the clone's panic. "Wh-what's happening? What am I doing here?" His voice is somewhat raspy, but also... vaguely angelic, for want of a better adjective. I suppose it's a result of the magic.

He looks him dead in the eye. "What am I?"

The scientist fails to reply, stuttering, for a second. "Y-you're a clone."

"A clone?" he echoes.

"Yes."

"But... I'm the United bloody Kingdom! What are you on about? I'm not a clone!"

"Oh dear." He looks at me. "I think I need to reprogram the machine slightly."

He moves over to the control panel and begins to change something there, pressing multiple buttons and entering commands. Not entirely sure what to say, I just stare at my clone.

Suddenly, he stops speaking, and his eyes widen with horror and confusion. His limbs twitch for a few moments, and then are still.

"Okay, he shouldn't think that he's you anymore," the scientist calls over his shoulder. "I'll just remove the helmet now."

As he does so, the clone begins to speak again, to me this time. "Who am I? I can't remember my name."

"It's your responsibility to give him a name," the scientist adds. "He's going to be living within your household. Unless that's inconvenient for you, in which case other arrangements could be made..."

"No... no, that won't be necessary." For some reason, looking at a being who's only an eye colour and identity away from being me, I feel a strange sort of bond. I don't want to call him by my name, since that would cause confusion, but it would feel wrong to give him a completely different name...

At the perfect time to derail my train of thought, Prussia bursts into the room.

"Who wants McDonald's!" he shouts, in a tone that's more of an announcement than a question.

"Well then, you three enjoy your meal," the scientist says as Prussia opens a huge box full of chicken McNuggets and onion rings. I'm surprised that they're still in business. They even devised new formulas for their food a couple of decades ago, which completely destroyed their junk food reputation.

I hand some of the food to the clone, giving him a little bit of energy to actually reach the box itself.

"In the meantime," he continues, "I'll book a Pacificapsule for your departure."


End file.
